This is an extra-special edition of the Monday Roundup, with an Exciting Fucking Announcement on the bottom!
Noah Brand
On the Good Men Project: is the Violence Against Women Act sexist?
The Weird Porn article, which first ran on NSWATM, has been rerun on Jezebel and AlterNet. AlterNet has the most delightfully assholish commenters of all time; check it out if you’re into that sort of thing.
Other
If you’re a man trying to get a woman to commit, email Clarisse Thorn, because she wants to write an article about you. Email her at clarisse at rolereboot dot org!
EXCITING FUCKING ANNOUNCEMENT
dun dun dun dun… drumroll please..
NSWATM is moving! Soon, we will be under the Good Men Project umbrella. This has all kinds of awesome benefits (mostly for me):
1) Better hosting!
2) Untold riches from advertising, or at least enough money to buy my girlfriend one of those petticoats she keeps drooling over!
3) Noah feels less guilty about having to go work his Real Job and can come write for us more!
4) I get to use the official Good Men Project teleporter (only alternate Thursdays)!
But even though we’re under the GMP umbrella I will still be able to give you all the awesome menzblogging, gender theory, random rants about things that piss me off, statistics, and funny pictures you’ve come to expect. Actually, there will probably be more posts because if there’s one thing that motivates me it’s greed and/or my girlfriend in fancy petticoats. And you do not have to worry that the GMP’s more, erm, excitable commenters will comment on NSWATM, because I’m still allowed to ban people who annoy me too much.
So yay! NSWATM Moving Day approaches!
aliarasthedaydreamer
Ami Angelwings
Hershele Ostropoler
Cheradenine
jlandrith
kaija24
2020
noahbrand
Cliff Pervocracy
ozymandias
Shora
sirgabe
figleaf
John Hawkins
No, Seriously, What About Teh Menz? 
So Noah’s post… on TGMP. He’s wrong about the assertions he makes. To wit:
For example the definition of “TRIBAL COALITION” is
” `(A) an established nonprofit, nongovernmental tribal coalition addressing domestic violence and sexual assault against American Indian or Alaskan Native women; or
`(B) individuals or organizations that propose to incorporate as nonprofit, nongovernmental tribal coalitions to address domestic violence and sexual assault against American Indian or Alaska Native women.”
There is not a “complete lack of gendered language”, in the act. Also note that there is in fact gendered language in the definitions section.
I was getting a little bit scared when you said NSWATM will be part of the GMP since the comments there are such a cesspool. I’m glad this blog will still be moderated!
I definitely support gender-neutral protections against domestic violence, but it seems like a lot of MRA groups are pushing for decreased protections for women, rather than increased protections for men.
Have them remove the auto-refresh on your posts. It’s extremely annoying, and THE reason I don’t go on TGMP much. I keep pages opened, and auto-refresh is THE way to get RAM leaks, for no good reason.
@Lamech:
Not to mention the name. Though the name is arguably unimportant as long as the actual text is gender-neutral. It’s still bothersome, though, and certainly continues to give the impression that violence against women is a more urgent/important matter than violence against men.
That aside…
Sec. 402 (b):
Sec. 41305:
And specifically Sec. 41305 (c.1.B):
Mind you, this is from a quick skimming. It’s an enormous document, so there may be corresponding clauses specifically targeting research into violence against men and specifically targeting education of women and girls to be allies of men and boys to work toward ending violence against men, etc. But I’m skeptical.
There is, of course, mostly non-gendered language in the act. Which is good. But I still think there is enough gendered language to be critical of.
I would rather see VAWA simply renamed and stripped of asymmetric gendered language and mandates than see it abolished. It has important stuff in there, which should simply be expanded to everyone. But as it is now, it does promote a toxic gendered victimology that is harmful, even if only in the title.
My opinion is that there are serious gendering issues in VAWA, and that the idiots who are all “everything in VAWA is sexist, it doesn’t protect male survivors at all, END THE LAW” are making it extremely difficult to discuss them, in much the same way as pro-banning-porn feminists make it incredibly difficult to discuss the actual problems with porn.
Ozymandias42: I don’t disagree with you, but I’ll just add that people who state that there is nothing sexist in VAWA are not exactly helping either.
Excuse a foreigner, but what’s ” a man trying to get a woman to commit” referring to? Marriage? Having children?
Flyingkal: I believe Clarisse is going for an inclusive definition here– anything from “getting married” to “explicitly stating a relationship is romantic.”
Ozy: Thank you.
Quoting my post from the TGMP linked on this post (I hope that made sense):
From the Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act of 2011:
“(A) Nondiscrimination.–No person in the United States shall on the basis of actual or perceived race, color, religion, national origin, sex, gender identity (as defined in paragraph 249(c)(4) of title 18, United States Code), sexual orientation, or disability be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity funded in whole or in part with funds made available under the Violence Against Women Act of 1994 (title IV of Public Law 103-322; 108 Stat. 1902), the Violence Against Women Act of 2000 (division B of Public Law 106-386; 114 Stat. 1491), the Violence Against Women and Department of Justice Reauthorization Act of 2005 (title IX of Public Law 109-162; 119 Stat. 3080), the Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act of 2011, and any other program or activity funded in whole or in part with funds appropriated for grants, cooperative agreements, and other assistance administered by the Office on Violence Against Women.”
Because I’m pretty sure that clearly qualifies that VAWA funds cannot be used in a way that discriminates one the basis of actual or perceived race, color, national origin, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, or disability. Oh, wait there was another paragraph right after that…
“(B) Exception.–If gender segregation or gender-specific programming is necessary to the essential operation of a program, nothing in this paragraph shall prevent any such program or activity from consideration of an individual’s gender. In such circumstances, alternative reasonable accommodations are sufficient to meet the requirements of this paragraph.”
…unless they are discriminating against males (or trans folk, what with that actual or perceived bit), then it’s OK so long as they claim that it’s needed and provide a “separate but reasonable” alternative. There’s one important thing missing here: define reasonable. It’s certainly a lower standard than “equal”, but where exactly does it lie?
Is this still in the most current version of things? I’m terrible at tracking down legal stuffs unless they are very well known things. I was looking at http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-112s1925is
@Schadrach: Even if they didn’t have the exception to the non-discrimination bit VAWA, would still be fairly sexist. If programs are designed to help women the fliers/advertising/website will be directed at women. Most men aren’t going to know about random bits of the VAWA. So how often do you attempt to get dental care advice at a haircut place? What about trying to get a haircut at your dental office? Same problem here, men won’t realize that the services for women are legally obligated to serve them to.
In addition if the program is designed to help women, and the people have been trained to help women, it very possible they will be poorly equipped to deal with abused men. Society seems to treat it as a joke, and they could very easily have that same problem too without training to eliminate it.
So yes while the non-discrimination clause is nice, and needed, really the gendered language needs to go.
NSWATM moving to GMP? Ew. Sorry, but I think I’ll definitely be commenting less– you’d have to ban quite a number of people in order for it to meet my minimum requirements for a “discussion that doesn’t make me want to punch puppies”. Sorta defeats the purpose of moving, tbh.
Have fun over there~
Hmmm, can’t say I’m too keen on the move either. But hey, if it works for you 😉
Er, what does “under the … umbrella” entail, exactly?
L: All the people already banned will stay banned, and I still get to look at people’s first comment and be like “hey, I remember you, you’re the one who thinks female penguins are whores” and not let them comment.
Charcoalhibiscus: We’re hosted by the same place, they run advertisements on the blog and we both get a cut of the ads, they promote some of NSWATM’s posts on their front page.
You couldn’t get me over to the GMP with the promise of a ten foot high puppy pile. You couldn’t even convince me to lurk.
Good luck, and I’ll be sorry to see you go.
Seconding the call to ditch the autorefresh. That’s the sole reason why I never visit GMP. When you flip between tabs as much as I do it’s impossible to finish an article without multiple interruptions from refreshing, and it’s really irritating.
Congratulations on the move, it will be great to have 2 of my favorite internetty places in one spot. Don’t spend all of your money on petticoats, make sure you buy something fun for yourself too.
@Schadrach:
Thanks for the link to the 2011! I was looking at the link that Noah gave in his post, which was the 2005 version.
It looks like Sec. 41305 has been repealed in its entirety, so scratch that.
From a brief skimming, it does indeed look like the 2011 version is far more gender neutral, along the lines of what I would like to see, which is nice.
Whether it is implemented in a non-discriminatory way remains to be seen (and I’m highly skeptical), but IMO that’s a different issue.
I would still like to see the title changed, because it’s kind of a historical slap in the face, but I guess you can’t have everything… *sigh*
@Ozy: Still, you’re likely to get way more regulars from GMP commenting. The vast majority of whom I can’t stand and whose bullshit I have no time for, so like I said, you’d have to ban like, everyone.
Yeah, ditto on the autorefresh, it’s seriously annoying. I do hope this blog manages to sustain its unique character under the GMP banner — I often find that site a bit sex-obsessed and patronising. (Somebody once called it “Cosmo for guys” — a bit harsh, but I can see why.)
@L
If it is any consolation, I’m a little skeptical too. I trust the bloggers here so I am willing to give it a shot and see how things turn out, but I have seen good bloggers get consumed by larger umbrella sites. Now, the umbrella site in question is a pretty bad MRA site and I don’t think GMP has nearly as strong a political spin, but yours were not the only ears raised when reading about the move.
I guess at the end of the day I’m willing to trust Ozy and Noah to do their jobs. They’ve done alright so far, and though some alarms are going off, I have no real substantial reasons to doubt them now. Your mileage may vary on that point, I guess I just wanted to let you know that you’re not alone in your thinking :-).
PS – It isn’t germane to this thread, but if you’re curious about the MRA site I’m talking about, respond and I’ll tell the story in the open thread.
Heh, I saw that one coming from a mile away. Awesome stuff, it’ll be nice to have NSWATM be promoted some more, and I’m not too worried about any flood of asshole commenters. It’ll work itself out, I’m sure (Hopefully with only minor graying of Ozy’s hair).
I’m really gutted about the move. I love NSWATM and I’d hate to see it turn into anything like GMP. I have my fingers crossed that it all works out 🙂
It will be nice to have some more sensible feminists hanging around GMP to say the least.
Oh yeah:
http://dannyscorneroftheuniverse.blogspot.com/2012/05/do-you-really-wish-it-had-been-you.html
Just taking a moment to go over the whole, “Gee, I wish that was men!” mentality that guys fall into when it comes to female against male rape and I offer how (I think) they should be thinking about such cases.
@PsyConomics: I’m not saying that the quality of their writing will decline or… that ads and revenue will somehow ruin NSWATM, but rather I just won’t be contributing to comment threads because I’ll be drowning in women-hate and stupid if I did. Unfortunately, the comment threads are most of the reason I come here, actually. Well see.
@L: I’m taking an innocent until proven guilty type approach. This whole thing seems more like an advertising and hosting arrangement, rather than a true merger. Besides, the only thing keeping those self-same woman-haters from NSWATM at the moment is the rigorous comment moderation, which will no doubt remain.
Yeah I’m pretty skeptical about the move too, but I’ll keep reading. Trying to see it as a move toward making the GMP better.
@Danny: Good post. I think this “I wish that was me” is a rape fantasy (hey, women have them, why not men, too?). And maybe the men saying it for some reason (perhaps the general expectation of men to have lots of sex?) don’t see that reality is very different from that fantasy.
One explanation I saw, is that the difference between sex and rape is like the difference between eating chocolate ice cream and having it shoved into your face.
@Myself:
Looking into this more, it looks like this is just one proposed update to the bill. I admit I haven’t been tracking the VAWA renewal stuff very closely. But I get the impression that there are at least two conflicting proposals right now, but I’m not sure where to find them or what the status is on them. Can anyone who has been tracking this more closely give some more information on this?
Noah is correct, but not for the reason he thinks he is.
From the 2005 revision to VAWA: “Nothing in this title shall be construed to prohibit male victims of domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking from receiving benefits and services under this title.”
I have to say that the statement BlackHumor refers to sounds just like laziness. It is also an implicit admission that there exists language in the law which is problematic in the sense that it can be construed to prohibit services and benefits to male victims.
Why not make the name and text gender neutral through and through rather than to slap on a band-aid?
As it is now it is kind of like a user with the nick WhiteAryanPower claims that nothing s/he write shall be construed to be racist.
I have only skimmed through most of it and a lot of the sections on funding for education and prevention programs looks gendered. The statement BH refers to does nothing to ensure that prevention and awareness programs will also be directed to women (to the indirect benefit of male victims).
Kristine:
@Danny: Good post. I think this “I wish that was me” is a rape fantasy (hey, women have them, why not men, too?). And maybe the men saying it for some reason (perhaps the general expectation of men to have lots of sex?) don’t see that reality is very different from that fantasy.
Oh yeah there are guys that have rape fantasies but honestly that hadn’t even crossed my mind. But even so making a fantasy out of someone actually being raped sounds a bit cold to me.
And I’m not sure if its men that imagine a fantasy while not realizing that they are not paying attention to the full reality. Maybe for them the reality is guys can’t be raped by women”?
Xakudo:
I’ll admit I’m a bit confused on it as well but there is a post I did on two versions that (I think) are in conflict with each other? (http://dannyscorneroftheuniverse.blogspot.com/2012/05/hr-4970-vs-hr-4271.html)
@BlackHumor: Yeah, no. An awful lot of the money handed out is grants for programs. That section doesn’t bar someone from making a program that refuses to help men. It merely means that programs aren’t barred by the law from helping. Nor does it do anything to require a program to actually advertise itself as helping men. You don’t try to buy shoes at the dentists office do you? Even if it did require programs (which it doesn’t) to help, most men won’t realize they can get help at a “woman’s shelter”.
So nice try. But no, still sexist. Not barring something is not the same as mandating it.
In addition you have studies which are a perfect example of how to generate confirmation bias, and I think a few training programs which train police to recolonize signs of domestic violence against woman, but not men. (Ensuring that their will be bias to arrest the men if they ever get called.)
I have…really mixed feelings about NSWATM moving. I feel like the two sites have a VERY different feel and attitude and attract somewhat different crowds (though I admit I have not been to GMP much since the Noah move-in) and I am super afraid of NSWATM becoming more GMP-like.
How will NSWATM differentiate itself from the rest of GMP? I mean, thinking of it in the terms of a newspaper with sections…what does NSWATM have that thematically/content-wise sets it apart from the sections at GMP? Is it just the particular writers?
@Lamech: in practice, I don’t think that there is any effective obligation for the government-funded services to serve men too. Apparently a lot of them have been caught automatically treating male victims of domestic violence as abusers and sending them to advice lines for abusers, for instance. Besides, any attempt to sue them in order to make them actually provide services to men gets portrayed as some kind of evil misogynistic attack designed to take resources away from victims of domestic violence, because of course women are the only victims of domestic violence that actually matter. It doesn’t matter how gender-neutral the law is on paper if it’s impossible to actually get it applied in a gender-neutral way.
As far as I can tell, no-one’s even managed to shut down the truly horrific gender-based stuff like Duluth Model domestic violence programs. Those assume that, no matter which partner in a heterosexual relationship appears to be the abusive or violent one, the man is always the abuser because of patriarchy and try to solve the problem by breaking him down and reeducating him into realising his behaviour is abusive and believing that any objections he has to his partner being violent or trying to control him are just an attempt to justify his own abusive behaviour. In the case of domestic violence programs that are entered into as part of a plea deal, this is done by threatening to send him to jail for arguing back or complaining about his partner hitting or threatening him during the reeducation sessions, followed by actually doing so if he persists. (This is, incidentally, why you won’t find anyone that supports a gender-neutral version of the Duluth model. It has really awful consequences if you don’t in fact have an 100% reliable way of telling abusers from victims, its creators just knew they’d never happen to anyone of a gender they cared about.)
Also, there’s stuff like the FBI quotas for the maximum proportion of domestic violence arrests that are allowed to be of women – something like 8% I think, based on historic arrest rates and well below the percentage of domestic violence that is actually perpetrated by women.
http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2012/May/12-ag-635.html
Search this for “female”. … I mean seriously is the random sexism really needed?
Also Lamech’s guide to stopping Prison Rape
1) Camera’s everywhere. They are cheap as hell now everything should be recorded.
2) If their is a complaint check the camera.
3) Press Charges against the guilty party. Not any of this administrative in house crap. Its a crime use the justice system. Oh and separate them from the rest of the prison population. This is trivial you have video evidence.
4) Make sure you have decent rape laws. Also prisoners can’t consent to sex with prison or other state officials.
5) Significantly reduced repeat offenders.
@makmomk: Basically exactly right. Just because a law is gender/racially/whatever neutral on paper doesn’t mean it isn’t sexist/racist/whateverist. The classic example is crack cocaine laws. Followed closely by the Terry Stops used in black neighborhoods. However the VAWA fails even to be gender neutral. Its easy to fix and would fix a lot of the problems.
Hmm… the top part should have been in the open thread…